Research in School-University Partnerships

Catalog description

A school-university partnership (SUP) is as "a living, learning community intended to close conceptual and practical separations that tend to exist between teacher education programs and the nation's schools" (NAPDS, 2021, p. 10). SUPs are well-positioned to convene community members from disparate institutional role identities as partners who learn together through reflection and inquiry. The challenges inherent in creating learning communities that actually involve all community members has been long acknowledged in SUP work. One approach to supporting the learning of a wider range of SUP partners is to create and sustain an inquiry community that is continually engaged in the cyclical process of practitioner inquiry. C-S 565 provides one such community. In light of systemic racial discrimination and oppression, this course more specifically focuses on the use of inquiry/research in a SUP inquiry community to address issues of social justice, and concentrate on ways schools and universities can partner in the urgent and crucial work of educational equity. In this course, students (target: SUP partners from both PreK-12 schools and the university) will work within a SUP inquiry community to develop theoretical and practical understanding about practitioner inquiry, teacher education across the career-span, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB). They will engage in scholarly discussion and research related to these concepts and situated within their own unique contexts: 1. What do we mean by social justice and DEIB? 2. What is practitioner inquiry and how can it be useful to my practice as a teacher, teacher educator, and/or educational researcher addressing issues of social justice? 3. How can schools and universities partner for educational equity?